Small businesses across the city of Altoona saw a spike in their customer base this past weekend with the second Crazy Daze event.

The event became city wide last year after the owners of Hidden Treasures, LaTeDa and Sugar Shack decided to expand the event from their strip mall on the east side of town.

In the second year of the event, 12 businesses participated in the retailer bingo game.

“We’ve had a good two days. We started on Friday morning and ran until closing hours and we had customers all day long and then today we had customers right off the bat at 10 and we have been busy all day,” said Twila Shreves, owner of Hidden Treasures. “I think it has been better even than last year.”

Altoona area retailers organized the second year of Crazy Daze, offering area shoppers fun and good values. Shoppers had an opportunity to find bargains in food, clothing and jewelry. Mark Davitt/For the Herald-Index

Altoona area retailers organized the second year of Crazy Daze, offering area shoppers fun and good values. Shannon Peter of Omaha shops at LaTeDa, which displayed its eclectic products on rack outside the story. Mark Davitt/For the Herald-Index

“I think it is great for the businesses to collaborate and do things together. I just think that people are excited to get out when there are several places to stop and especially with the intent of winning a prize,” said Emily Baker, owner of Vine & Willow. “It brings new people in. In the three hours I was there today I had around 10 all new customers but I believe we had several new ones on Friday.”

While attendance appeared to be up, the number of turned in bingo cards appeared to be lower, said organizers. This could be in part due to the new rule of one card per family.

“The businesses we have heard from are saying it is going well and we are hearing from customers that they love it and they are so excited that we did this again this year and that it gives them the opportunity to visit places they wouldn’t go normally,” Shreves said.

For Mark Poulos, owner of Sugar Shack, the event helped draw people to his restaurant.

That could be in part because of the festive atmosphere, with music playing outside and the smell of the hamburgers cooking on the grill.

“Sales are definitely up because of the increase in guests and I have seen a lot of people early and it has been steady all day long,” Poulos said. “I wish we could get more local businesses involved because I think they are missing out on an opportunity to reconnect with the community. We love what we do and we love the people that come in and we are fortunate to have the support from the community.”

Both Shreves and Baker said it was times like now that small businesses in a community must band together.

“I think it is key for the small businesses to stay in the forefront of the minds of our local customers as the outlet mall gets ready to open and I think that was one of the reasons we wanted to start the retail council to come together as a community of businesses,” Shreves said. “Because we don’t have a downtown where people know to go to shop for unique shops we are spread out because Altoona is spread out now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together and do fun events like this.”

“I wish we had more small businesses,” Baker said. “When I go to a town I look for the small businesses, something different and unique than the big corporate stores. You want to have different stuff not the same old stuff from the box stores.”